The Month In Design, from Googlelandia to Usonia

Our buildings, ourselves: The difference between Apple and Google, represented by their headquarters

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credit: Foster and partners/ NBBJ

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I was a bit preoccupied this month with these giant corporate headquarters being built in the 'burbs.

Albert Camus wrote: “All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant's revolving door.” Yet all of these companies are doing their best to internalize that street corner or revolving door. They want "casual collisions", but with their own kind, their own people. They are building suburban office parks that they cover with solar panels while they build giant parking garages for all the sportscars.

Apple is all about design; Google is all about data. Neither of them seem to get urbanity.